After landing in the world of govtech by chance, founder Silas Deane is now working to inspire the next generation of government system innovations.
Deane is the founder of OnGov, a govtech startup developing a platform to help municipalities update their systems. Beyond just building tech, Deane and his team are also working to connect government leaders with students to help build tech solutions.
“If I focus on the outcomes I’m trying to create for these individuals, everything else will fall into place.”
Silas Deane, 1776 Labs
The company is hosting its first 1776 Labs on Friday, a day-long hackathon-style event where government leaders will explain challenges they are facing and student participants will help develop possible solutions.
Despite all of this traction, Deane told Technical.ly he never expected to work in government technology. He originally pursued a music career and was on track to be a producer until the pandemic hit.
After taking a job installing cloud infrastructure, he was introduced to the world of prison systems and became interested in how incarcerated people re-entered society after being released.
He built a startup called Community Readiness, a platform that connected people who were formerly incarcerated with resources to help them reintegrate.
A chance conversation in a shared office bathroom led to an unexpected connection with an executive at Tyler Technologies. Deane later taught the man’s son how to DJ —and Community Readiness ultimately became part of Tyler through a broader acquisition. Deane then helped scale the platform to more than 400 jails across the United States.
But after that success, Deane knew that he wasn’t done building new technology. He went back to school and decided to jump headfirst into the govtech space with OnGov.
In this edition of How I Got Here, Deane shares his journey from music producer to tech founder and explains why he believes the future of govtech means developing technology that addresses problems within established systems.
This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you end up in the tech world?
I’m originally from Nashville, Tennessee, and grew up playing guitar for bands and writing music. I went to Vanderbilt University to study economics and then once I graduated, I signed a record deal to be a music producer. I thought that would be my long-term path.
But when COVID-19 hit, basically overnight, all of that got shut down. I was working for a government technology company VendEngine, really just to make some beer money on the side. I went down to St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, to install cloud infrastructure for a local jail facility.
Out of curiosity, I asked the jailer, “Can I get a list of resources that you all hand the inmates when they get out?” This individual looked me in the eyes and laughed at me and said, “We don’t have anything.”
I thought that was really shocking. Someone who worked at VendEngine with me was a former jailer for Rikers Island, and he and I started traveling around jails together, talking to more people and realizing this was a big issue.
I taught myself how to code, and built a system to coordinate reentry, connecting those people to jobs, resources, transitional homes and mental health support before they step out of those doors.
What has entrepreneurship taught you?
Sometimes the real opportunity is hidden inside the problems that everybody else thinks are already solved.
I had a moment with that jailer from Rikers Island, where I was freaking out about this idea. He said, “If you’re focused on the right things, you have nothing to worry about.”
That was a big pivot moment in my mind. If I focus on the outcomes I’m trying to create for these individuals, everything else will fall into place.
What brought you to Philly?
I worked at Tyler Technologies for three years, but I personally thought there was a lot more that could be done. I wasn’t really a big fan of working at a big company. I liked the startup world. I like building. I like creating.
I wanted to come to the University of Pennsylvania mostly to just be surrounded by a lot of thought leaders, surrounded by people who want to create and to be in the heart of where government was fundamentally founded. I’m now an entrepreneur in residence at Wharton as well.
What is your goal for the 1776 Labs?
1776 Labs involves inviting other people to collaborate, providing a space where leaders can actually express those challenges and then allowing a space for people to innovate on top of that.
I want state officials to see that you can come with an issue and actually create change in these systems. By bringing these leaders in, we’re hopefully inspiring young people to get involved in creating solutions for their community. Then, we can actually change outdated technology and systems.
We’re already working with a lot of schools across the country on the 1776 Labs. We hope to be rolling out five to 10 of them next year. It really gives younger people an opportunity to build the future of their government wherever they are.
Do you see ties between your music career and your founder journey?
My career has been held together by a theme of producing creative opportunities. I see entrepreneurship a lot like writing an album. It’s taking chaos and making order out of it.
Entrepreneurship can be very lonely. It can be tough. It always takes longer than you think it should take, but it’s also very rewarding, because you’re building something, you’re telling a story. It’s an encapsulation of who you are at that time, put out into the world.
I do feel like I’m writing music with this work. It’s just a different end product. It’s not auditory, it’s digital or physical, but it’s still telling a story. It’s still something that you’re creating.
